STATE PANEL TO CONSIDER EXPANDING OREGON'S MEDICAL POT LAW

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - The state law that has provided marijuana to more than
400 medical patients suffering from diseases such as cancer and AIDS could
be expanded if an advisory group decides that smoking pot helps ease
anxiety, depression and sleep disorders.

Kelly Paige, manager of Oregon's medical marijuana program, said the law
approved by voters in 1998 allows individuals to request that additional
diseases or conditions be treated.

She said the Oregon Health Division has received requests from patients to
include post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression,
bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's disease and sleep disorders.

The Health Division is assembling an advisory group of medical
professionals and patients to meet next month to make recommendations. The
agency likely will make a final decision in April, Paige said.

``We're going through the process,'' she said. ``We don't have any
preconceived notion about which, if any, of the conditions should be added.''

But some lawmakers already are concerned.

``The Health Division needs to be careful not to go far beyond what the
voters intended,'' said state Rep. Kevin Mannix, a Salem Republican and
candidate for state attorney general.

Mannix opposed the 1998 law and pushed a bill through the 1999 Legislature
clarifying parts of it. He said that considering additional medical
marijuana treatments might send a message to young people that marijuana
use is an acceptable way to deal with anxiety.

He said the Health Division is giving ammunition to critics who called the
law a back-door attempt to legalize pot.

``The citizens were sold on this based on its narrow application,'' Mannix
said. ``These additional listed conditions raise the specter of the
aggressive broadening of the medical marijuana act.''

Geoff Sugerman, a political consultant who worked on the campaign to pass
the medical marijuana law, said a federal report last year found that
marijuana can help some people with anxiety disorders.

``It is socially irresponsible for politicians like Kevin Mannix to deny a
medicine to people that science has proven can help them,'' Sugerman said.

During the 1998 election campaign on medical marijuana, some law
enforcement officials and other opponents warned that large-scale marijuana
dealers or growers might hide behind the marijuana law.

But Paige said the law appears to be working smoothly and providing help to
some seriously ill patients.

``In the past few months, we've gotten a lot of phone calls from patients
and doctors who say this is really helping people,'' she said.